Website crowdsources images to raise funds for national parks

Art on the range

Want to give back to the U.S. national parks? Sweden-born photographer Oscar Nilsson did. “I moved to California five years ago, and from the moment I first moved here I was so blown away by the national parks. They’re kind of part of what inspired me to pursue photography.”

Hoping to buoy his muse, Nilsson partnered with pop-up events producer Alex Tatem to found The Art Rangers, a website where photographers and other artists can donate their park-inspired works to be sold to the public, with 100 percent of the proceeds going directly to the National Park Foundation.

To become an “art ranger,” you submit a high-res image via the website and answer a few short questions about the work. The Art Rangers team reviews images to make sure they’re large enough to produce a quality print. Those that make the cut are up loaded to the website, filed under the appropriate national park. “We are getting lots of submissions from Yosemite and Yellowstone, and so we are trying to fill up the lesser known national parks,” Nilsson says.

Eventually Nilsson and Tatem plan to create live Art Ranger events. “We just want to have a conversation about what we can do [for the parks] and why they’re important—for artists in particular.”